She cocked her head. “I guess it’s a balancing process.”
“Balancing what you gain against what you put on the table. Sure. And in this case, doing boat ops — that’s something I expect my crew to take in stride.” He waited, but she didn’t seem to have anything to add.
“CO, Sonar.” The 21MC again.
“Go, Rit.”
“Got Pittsburgh actual on the line. He says okay to a boat transfer, but he wants to stay at least a mile away. Oh, and he says he’s picking up a set of high-speed screws out to the east of us we might want to keep an eye on.”
Dan shook his head, recalling from the SATYRE exercises he’d conducted how terrified nuke skippers were of getting anywhere near what they called “skimmers.” As if everyone on a gray ship’s bridge was incompetent. “Tell him that’s too far to send a boat in these conditions. I’ll put my RHIB in the water and head west. He can move in from the east as we clear the area, and the boat will essentially stay in the middle. Clear that with him.”
Carpenter rogered, and Dan called the bridge to get them ready.
Pittsburgh surfaced well over a mile distant. Through his binoculars, he watched the black sail cut the slate sea like a hammerhead’s fin, throwing white water to both sides. She was making about fifteen knots, ballasted down to minimize rolling in the five-foot swells. From atop the black blunt tower tiny figures studied him back.
It had rained during the night and the wing was still filmed with a sheen of dampness, and bright water slid back and forth beneath the gratings. Clanking and shouting from below; he swiveled in his chair to monitor the RHIB crew swinging out their gray burden. He could wish for calmer seas, but he’d told Cheryl the truth. Any destroyer crew worth its salt had to be ready to do small-boat ops, in case of a man overboard, a helo crash, or own-force protection in port.
The silvery swollen bulk of the rigid inflatable swayed as the ship rolled. Red-helmeted seamen staggered at the ends of steadying lines like handlers trying to manage an unruly elephant. A surge broke along the side and spray blasted up the hull-sheer and drenched them like rain. The rest of the crew mustered aft, at a Jacob’s ladder. Dan set his glasses on each man, making sure his life preserver was properly fastened and secured to his safety line.
Amid hollering and gesticulating, the engines snarled and the boat dipped, yawed to a wild wave, slammed its stern into Savo’s steel, and sheered aft. Another shout, and the crew scrambled down. It curved away, gaining speed and jumping crests awkwardly like a baby dolphin as the crew crouched. Only the coxswain stood erect, boots rooted wide, leather gloves steady on the chromed wheel. The OOD put on hard left rudder and the cruiser’s massive bow came around deliberately, pushed by the single screw on the line now, and accelerated away from the glow of the hidden sun.
Dan’s Hydra beeped. “CO,” he muttered.
Staurulakis. “TAO here, sir. Got an E-band air search radar active on zero nine five. Out where you told us the sub reported high-speed screws. Okay to notify?”
Dan rubbed a bristly chin. That was a military radar. So anything carrying it was prima facie a threat. Notify, query, and warn were the ascending levels of communication with an unknown. After that came defensive action, if the contact continued to close or demonstrated hostile intent. “Range?”
“He’s out of the beam for the Aegis. I can get you a range, but we might have to put the gun radar on him.”
“What’s wrong with the surface search?”
“Offline for maintenance.”
“I should’ve been told.”
“Sorry, Captain. Was about to.”
“Don’t use the gun radar. Notify on Channel 16.”
“On it, Captain. TAO out.”
The RHIB shrank behind them. Dan watched it bob and reappear between corroded-looking waves. The black tower in the sea had altered course toward it. Gulls skimmed the wavetops, vanishing between the swells, then reappearing. Like sea-skimming missiles … What was Ammermann doing? He really ought to stop by and see the staffer. At least tell him there wasn’t any answer yet to the offload request. It didn’t cost anything to extend due courtesy.
Minutes later the OOD came out, clutching his cap against the cold gusts. “Skipper, contact at zero nine five, twenty thousand and closing. Designated Skunk Kilo. Looks like a constant bearing.”
“EW has him too. He’s still on a closing course?”
“According to the surface search, Captain.”
“It’s back up again?”
“Yes sir.”
He hit the Hydra again. “Cheryl, CO. Did your E-band answer up to the notification?”
“Stand by … Sir, our surface search is back up. Also, yes, they replied. INS Lahav requests permission to close.”
He dropped his bootsoles to the wet gratings with a thud. Lahav … memory supplied a Sa’ar-class corvette. U.S.-built, but Israeli flagged. Smaller than Savo but heavily armed, with guns and Harpoon. Actually, he remembered seeing them being built down in Pascagoula, their superstructures slab-angled to reduce radar signature. That might explain why she’d not popped up earlier; at twenty thousand yards she was already inside missile range. They’d actually detected her, or at least the sub had, farther away by sonar than by radar.
Which raised another question. Any ship with an electronic-warfare stack could detect the side-lobes of the invisible yet massive beam of microwave radiation those big octagonal panels above him were projecting over the horizon. Why had the other skipper approached on a bearing he had to know, or at least suspect, he wouldn’t be readily detected on? Was that some sort of message? Or even, threat? Aloud Dan asked, “Permission to close us? Why?”
“No reason given.”
“Says he’s Israeli?”
“Consistent with the EW. Checks out against GCCS.”
Dan rubbed his chin. The Israelis were normally happy to see a U.S. ship. They only shadowed what they weren’t sure of. Something wasn’t kosher. So to speak. “We should have known about this dude as soon as he cleared port.”
“Yessir. Backchecking on that. Do we want to hold him outside five miles?”
He paused in the pilothouse, catching the Troll’s eye again as he keyed the Hydra to answer. “Tell him … no, request him to halt at five miles. Make sure he’s clear on who we are. Again: don’t illuminate him. I’m on my way down.” He didn’t want to give offense, and so close to Israeli territorial waters, no wonder they were being checked out. But he didn’t want to take any chances. Unnecessary chances, he reminded himself ironically.
The officer of the deck. “Captain, RHIB’s picked up Pittsburgh’s CO. Sub is retiring; permission to reverse course.”